Julia Kowalski’s Her Will Be Done begins with a cryptic series of images; pitch-black night, a pile of discarded clothing, closeups of various faces, impassive & expressionless. A figure writhes around, engulfed in flames. The camera lingers on the visage of a young girl, then cuts to a shot of Nawojka (Maria Wróbel). It’s unclear if we’ve just seen a flashback or a particularly grim dream sequence, but something clearly haunts Nawojka. We proceed to follow several days of her life on the family farm; she’s surrounded by her stern, gruff father and two brothers, one as odious as the other. The eldest brother is on the cusp of marriage, a ceremony that will bring together most of the denizens of this small, rural French community. But Nawojka and her family are outsiders, Polish immigrants who have slowly but surely been integrated into the community, and their dour life is captured in a string of claustrophobic interiors and damp, muddy fields by cinematographer Simon Beaufils.
Kowalski is doing a few things here: creating a fully lived-in, mostly realistic milieu, and then slightly heightening the bad vibes until things begin to tilt over into horror territory. There’s nothing outright scary here, just an ominous mood and slowly encroaching dread. We gradually discern that the film’s opening scenes are of Nawojka’s mother dying, and that Nawojka now fears that the same evil that possessed her mother has been passed on to her. She prays fervently, endures episodes of night terrors, and is occasionally gripped by convulsing fits. Is it witchcraft? Or is this all in her head? And does the mysterious illness tearing through the cow herd have anything to do with it?
Into this simmering psychological landscape comes Sandra (Roxane Mesquida), a former resident who has returned to the village after a long absence to sell her recently deceased parent’s’ property. Sandra cuts a vibrant path through this sallow world; decked out in short shorts, dyed hair, and a leg brace that she makes no effort to hide, the woman awakens something in Nawojka — a sexual energy, yes, but also a sense of power, and a refusal to be cowed by the small-minded, hopelessly ignorant people of the village.
Kowalski is playing in fairly well-trod territory here; a young woman beaten down by a patriarchal society, afraid of her own sexual desires, society and witchcraft as metaphor for coming of age and free will, etc. This is standard folk horror territory, but it’s enlivened here by the filmmaker’s careful attention to detail, patiently establishing an emotionally grounded world before pulling the rug out from under the audience. Kowalski also has a real eye for composition and pacing, slowly turning the screws until tensions finally burst during a prolonged wedding celebration. A drunken midnight drive seems inspired in part by the nightmarish Wake in Fright, and ends in a similar fit of violence. The fearful, ignorant masses will always try to destroy what they can’t understand, and breaking free of that cycle is sometimes victory enough. Her Will Be Done is both tragic and triumphant, the two extremes inextricably tied together. Nawojka seems to succumb to a prescribed fate, before realizing that there is no fate but what you make.
Published as part of Cannes Film Festival 2025 — Dispatch 2.
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